


Lucifer Was Pushed

by inkandchocolate



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-27
Updated: 2010-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-09 18:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandchocolate/pseuds/inkandchocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing ever ends. Not life. Not death. Certainly not these two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucifer Was Pushed

**Author's Note:**

> Begun in the WriSoMiFu Challenge and never finished. Still not finished but in progress. Posting mostly to get myself to read it freshly and feel at least some obligation to keep going... or perhaps salt and burn.

Rebirth is a strange thing, calling into play memories buried deep in the brain. Like the knowledge of how to breathe in and out, the memory of birth is simply there, lying low and asleep and unneeded. No one gets the chance to access it; no one needs the instant replay.

Except of course when they *do* need it and it comes to them, static, shutter-flip shots of what it was like to slide into a world of cold and noise and rough alien sensations when you've been lying for your perceived eternity in the comfort, warmth, safety of your mother's body. Locked tight in the absolute assurance that the whole world is like this: dark, warm, wet, close, your only soundtrack a steady thump-thump-thump of her heart punctuated with the softer whoosh of blood in your veins and hers, highlighted with the muffled staccato interruption of her voice, her laughter, then her cries of pain as the world as you know it comes to a sudden and very bloody end.

Though it was not quite that clear to him the second time he clawed his way into the world, it was still very much a parallel experience. One moment there was the bliss and quiet of nothingness. Near silence, every sound muffled by something that made him feel wrapped in cotton, safe and protected. Cocooned in it, no feeling of restriction at all. Rather there was the long-lost sensation of being cradled in his mother's body, softness all around. Close to her heart. Close to her love. Held. Loved. Nothing else to think about or want. The universe is this wet, warm perfection and he is a part of it.

Then there are hands, rough and grabbing, and there are screams - his own, though he does not recognize them after so long in the deep, dark silence - and there is pain. So much pain that he cannot even begin to tell where he starts and where it ends. Then cold, making his muscles spasm and clench in the agony of it all. Finally his chest is constricted and his lungs protest the lack of air. He fights, clawing and flailing his arms, each movement a new torture. None of it matters though, when he tries to breathe and he can't inhale enough to quench that need for oxygen in his lungs.

There is a blindness to his need to survive, so that later when he is free and lying on the dirt, gasping in huge mouthfuls of air, he can't recall how he got there. His hands are a wreck of broken nails and bloody skin. His mouth tastes like dirt, and he is sure he has swallowed more than he cares to actually know about. It's gritty on his tongue, scrapes against his teeth and makes him gag.

Rolling weakly to his side, he gags again and vomits into the grass. The bitterness of the bile makes his stomach curl in on itself and he's caught in the cycle there - heave, spit, drag in an unwilling nose full of the scent, heave again - until he can convince himself to crawl away from it and swallow down over and over. Does it until the gag reflex is tamed, then crawls a little further to find something to prop himself against and try to survey the damages.

One shaking hand rubs the dirt from his eyes and smears it over his face, mixes with the blood from his ravaged flesh. The marks are indistinguishable in the darkness of the night sky. How long he sits there trying to make sense of that gaping hole in the dirt, he has no idea. But when it finally gets to the place where he can no longer deny the obvious, it makes him want to roll over and vomit again.

That hole in the ground was where he was buried. That was his grave, and a shallow one at that. There's no sign he was handled with anything more than the most basic need to hide the remains, and he has to accept that no one was there to mourn him. No one cried over his body, they just dumped in the dirt, pushed a couple of bags of mulch on top and walked away. Maybe, he thinks without much bitterness, they took some time to put a marker on the spot. If they did, it's gone now.

He gets to his knees, then to his feet, ruined hands grabbing at the trunk of the tree for support before he staggers over to the place of his second birth. He hunkers down, his hand shooting out to catch his balance before he can fall headfirst back into the grave, and he stares as he tries to remember anything at all.

He spits dirt from his mouth as he struggles to get his brain working and clears his throat, though he has nothing to say and there is no one there to say it to. Frowning, he touches the raw edges of the hole, then draws back, wiping the dirt on jeans already streaked with the same mess. Staggering to his feet again, he looks around to get his bearings and nearly lands on his ass when he sees the figure waiting there, just on the other side of a fence that rings the makeshift graveyard.

"Listen, I've tried the whole patience as a virtue thing but it's really not my style," the man says as he starts to walk towards the open gate, heading slowly in this direction. "That right there, though? Classic rebirth. I've seen a few in my time and you were pretty much text book. Which is kind of a disappointment from someone like you. I mean, you of all people, I expected something a little bit more... flamboyant." The man's in full view now, tall and smirking in the moonlight as he lets his back press against this side of the gate.

The man sighs but there's no sign of the tendrils of smoke that should be there. There is only the movement of his shoulders and the sound of the exhalation itself "Come on, Lindsey, you're a lawyer. Well, technically you *were* a lawyer. Aren't you just dying to tell me off here? Words used to be your friends, Lin. I have to say that you're not making me feel any kind of confidence in the plan right now."

Lindsey frowns, the words not so much confusing as annoyingly clear and still making no sense to him. "I died," he says and coughs at the rawness of his own throat.

"Yeah try and catch up," Angel says as he steps closer, hands in the pockets of his coat. "I don't really have a lot of time here for the whole exposition thing. You died. You're not dead anymore. Didn't you get the memo?" The smirk fades some when Angel sees the blank look on Lindsey's face. "You have no idea what's happening, do you?"

Lindsey shakes his head, looks past Angel to the gaping would in the earth again. "Am I...." He gestures to the hole and touches his neck, rubbing there as he searches for the marks he's not even sure would remain if he'd been turned.

Angel rolls his eyes and reaches out to rip open the filthy shirt Lindsey's wearing. "Don't flatter yourself, Lindsey, you're the last person I'd be interested in sinking anything into. You were shot right after you finished taking out that gang of demons, any of this ringing a bell?" He taps the marks on Lindsey's chest where the bullet holes are puckered, white, raised from the dirty skin. "You're making me do the explaining thing."

Lindsey touches the marks with his fingers, lightly at first and then prodding hard enough to make the pale skin turn an angry red. His eyes remain turned down towards the evidence of his death as the memory helpfully returns full force with the sound of Lorne's voice clear in his head. Lindsey's voice, already rough, lends itself well to the growl that comes out of his throat as he reaches for Angel and grabs him tight in both hands. "You son of a bitch, you sent that goddamn singin' freak to kill me off. You were supposed to kill me yourself."

"Little busy, Lin, trying to end the Apocalypse?" Angel says and brushes Lindsey's hands away easily, then huffs at the marks on the leather he's left behind. "You weren't that important, you didn't merit a personal goodbye. Get over it."

Lindsey would like to spit but he's just not capable at the moment. His head is pounding, anger and exhaustion warring for top spot. Anger is getting its ass kicked at the moment and he takes in a deep breath before he tries to say another word here. When he finally thinks he might be able to stand up just a few minutes longer, he stares at Angel. "Then why the hell are you here now? And why the hell am *I* here now?"

Finally, Angel looks less smug and more like his usual self, which is to say broody and annoyed. "The Powers seem to think that you have some work to do. Unfinished business. Don't look at me; I was perfectly fine with you rotting in a shallow, unmarked grave. If I'd know where it was, I'd have come over and done a little dance on it."

"Fuck you," Lindsey snaps and rubs his hands over his jeans, wincing at the pain before he realizes that he's no longer feeling that same raw burning from the ruined flesh there. He figures it's just nerve damage, puts it aside. "You just come here to make sure I could crawl out without dyin' all over again or are you the messenger?"

"Both," Angel says and looks around again, his expression unreadable as always. "You've been chosen," he says, the words almost spit out, dry and quick. "You've got something to do and I'm supposed to set you on your path."

"You're not seriously tellin' me that the Powers picked me... and you." Lindsey watches Angel carefully for some sliver of reaction to that; gets nothing more than the same flat stare back. "Guess the sons of bitches got some twisted sense of humor then because I'd rather crawl up an' find just about anybody but you standin' there waitin' for me."

"No accounting for taste." Angel turns towards the gate he entered and begins to walk. "Let's go."

"Hold on," Lindsey says and stays put. "I'm not gonna go strollin' off through the graveyard with you. You gotta tell me a hell of a lot more than some cryptic bullshit from the Powers that Be an' if you expect me to believe it just because it came from you then you're dumber than I thought you were."

"Fine," Angel grunts and turns abruptly, walking back towards Lindsey so quickly that his coat flaps behind him. His expression is hard, his eyes narrowed and he reaches out with both hands and grabs hold of Lindsey's shoulder tight. "Proof. Should have known you'd want proof."

"Get offa me," Lindsey growls and tries to struggle but there's just too much on Angel's side here - size, speed, determination and not to mention that whole thing where Lindsey's still covered in the dirt from his own grave. He feels the shirt on his body yanked off completely and when his skin is bare, Angel's hands slide over his shoulders again, cool as Lindsey remembers them. "The fuck?" he snaps and pushes at Angel's chest.

Angel smirks again but his hands continue to reach around to Lindsey's back, pinning Lindsey's arms to his side as he presses his palms to the curve of shoulder and then scapula. He pauses there, tilts his head and frowns before he presses fingers in, rather than palms against the bone. It leaves the two men in an awkward embrace, one that Lindsey struggles against as he feels the pressure from Angel's fingers increase painfully.

"The fuck?" he asks again, louder this time and panting when he can't manage to do anything to get away from the pressure and the pain. "Stop!" Lindsey's breath is hard, stuttering as the fear gets bigger, starts to take control of him.

"Quit whining," Angel mutters and with a sudden and rough pop of his thumbs, he finds the thing he's been looking for and listens to the sounds it makes. His arms catch Lindsey's, hands slide up to grab onto him and hold as the protests and panting turn to gasps and cries of pain. Tearing flesh is never something Angel will forget the sound of but he's never quite heard it in this context before.

 

Lindsey's knees give way as the pressure and pain deepen, then suddenly change from inwards to outwards. One moment his back feels as though Angel may be reaching for his heart through his shoulders and the next it feels as though his shoulders are pushing back, fighting the invasion with their own attempts to repel it. He hears his skin give way before he feels it, a wet ripping noise that would have made him vomit if the pain hadn't hit him just then. It's hot, piercing and deep, stealing his breath and locking the scream that wants to come loose in his throat.

If Angel were not gripping him so tightly, Lindsey would be on his face in the dirt again. But he's held up, no longer embraced but held at arm's length, sagging as he tries to scream again and lets out a hoarse grinding noise that abuses his raw throat even further. He's sure he's dying - again - and that this is some kind of Hell he's landed in - again - where he'll be forced to endure not just pain but the company of Angel as well, having him witness it over and over again.

There's a sudden burst of pressure from his back and a spray of hot, sticky wetness that he's quickly able to identify when blood hits Angel's face as Lindsey lifts his head to look. He drags in a shuddering breath and feels the change in his body drag him backwards, tilting him in slow motion into an arc that would leave him on his wounded back on the ground if Angel let go.

Angel doesn't. His eyes glimmer, his face shifts and there's the sudden slick movement of his tongue between sharp teeth as he licks at the blood Lindsey's sprayed onto his face, but he doesn't let go. He growls some and shakes Lindsey roughly, makes Lindsey's head rock back and then forward again hard enough to send sparks of pain shooting up his spine and neck. The Angel lifts him, plants him down so that Lindsey's feet are on the ground again, and pushes as if trying to plant him into the earth a few feet so he no longer has to be the one keeping the balance. There's an odd expression on Angel's face, one Lindsey's never seen before and he can't identify it.

Then again, he's not at the top of his game. Not like he wants to make excuses for himself but he's just been raised from the dead and given some tortuous form of proof that he regrets asking for entirely. "What the hell did you do to me?" he finally rasps out as Angel steps back and leaves him wavering, that odd weight on his back still making him want to tilt and sway like he's forgotten the basics of standing upright.

"Gave you what you asked for," Angel says mildly, shaking off the vampire's form and carefully wiping the remaining blood from his face. Lindsey watches him stare at the smears on his fingers, fascinated at the longing on Angel's face that shows for only a flicker of a moment. "You really should have paid attention to those old sayings, Lindsey. They're still around for a reason."

"You're makin' less sense than usual," Lindsey grunts and carefully turns his head to the side, deep breath held as he begins to look over his shoulder, not even knowing what to expect and more than a little afraid to find out.


End file.
